National Weather Service denies any impact on public safety

By Charlie Brennan Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
05/03/2013 06:24:07 PM MDT

Updated:
05/03/2013 06:24:33 PM MDT

A professional organization representing 3,700 National Weather Service employees is cautioning that proposed furloughs caused by the congressional budget sequester could stretch forecasting staffs to "a breaking point" and create dangerous situations if severe weather events are misread.

But a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees NWS employees in Boulder and elsewhere, was cool to the prospect that the furloughs -- four per employee, between July 5 and Sept. 30 -- would have such an impact.

According to Dan Sobien, president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, "They are only staffed for weather being good, clear skies, no winds, no fires. They are only staffed for fair weather.

"When the weather gets bad, they have to call people in for overtime. If you have less people to call in for overtime, what's going to happen? Something is going to fall through the cracks."

Sobien said that lean staffing at NOAA's Boulder facility could compromise its ability to forecast tornadoes, decrease the accuracy of aviation and water level forecasts, and impact the ability to deploy weather support for wildfires and other emergencies.

The potential effect of proposed furloughs is compounded, Sobien said, by an existing NOAA hiring freeze.

"I think it could have a huge impact," Sobien said. "I'm not really sure what their staffing situation is like specifically at Boulder. However, across the country we have an unprecedented number of vacancies across the whole National Weather Service, involving approximately 10 percent of the people in emergency-essential positions."

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Ciaran Clayton, director of communications for NOAA in Washington, D.C., threw cold water on the notion that the Boulder area, or any location, could be left blindsided to the elements by NWS furloughs.

"Part of this proposal includes planning to ensure that our 24/7 operations are maintained in such a way that, while we have proposed four specific days, that doesn't mean that all 12,000-plus employees would take the same day," she said.

"And if there was a severe weather event or a wildfire event, we can always cancel furlough days for those employees, and have them take it on a different day. The critical services and information and data that we have provided will continue, regardless of the furloughs."

The furloughs, part of a NOAA spending plan that must first be approved by Congress, require a 30-day notice to the affected employees. Clayton said they would likely not take effect until July 5, and that the days would be used prior to the end of the current fiscal year, Sept. 30.

NOAA is just one of several research facilities in Boulder either run by, or heavily funded by, the federal government, and vulnerable to the effects of the ongoing budget sequester, about $85 billion in federal budget cuts that kicked in March 1. The cutbacks could be extended into the 2014 federal budget year, barring congressional action.

According to CO-LABS, federal laboratories in Colorado and their affiliates contributed $1.5 billion to the state economy in fiscal year 2010, and accounted for more than 16,000 direct and indirect jobs. Their net economic benefits to Boulder County totaled $463.8 million that year.

Although the National Center for Atmospheric Research is not a federal laboratory, the fact remains that more than 90 percent of its funding comes from the federal government, through entities such as the National Science Foundation, NOAA, NASA, the Department of Energy and others.

Money is tight enough, NCAR spokesman David Hosansky said, that the COMET program, a University Corporation for Atmospheric Research program offering online training for thousands of forecasters and others, has taken the unprecedented step of turning to its users for donations to meet a nearly $2 million shortfall, stemming in part from sequestration.

"We're definitely looking at a very difficult budget landscape right now," said Hosansky, speaking for NCAR and UCAR. "We don't have numbers yet for fiscal '14, but everything we're seeing points to another very, very tight year."

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, said the department is working on how to manage the budget cuts in a way that protects its core mission to serve the public, and that its plans are a work in progress.

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